IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v159y2014i1p159-176.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voters, dictators, and peons: expressive voting and pivotality

Author

Listed:
  • Emir Kamenica
  • Louisa Egan Brad

Abstract

Why do the poor vote against redistribution? We examine one explanation experimentally, namely that individuals gain direct expressive utility from voting in accordance with their ideology and understand that they are unlikely to be pivotal; hence, their expressive utility, even if arbitrarily small, determines their voting behavior. In contrast with a basic prediction of this model, we find that the probability of being pivotal does not affect the impact of monetary interest on whether a subject votes for redistribution. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Emir Kamenica & Louisa Egan Brad, 2014. "Voters, dictators, and peons: expressive voting and pivotality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 159-176, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:159:y:2014:i:1:p:159-176
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-012-0035-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-012-0035-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-012-0035-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 1998. "Expressive voting and electoral equilibrium," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 149-175, April.
    2. Shayo, Moses & Harel, Alon, 2012. "Non-consequentialist voting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 299-313.
    3. Copeland, Cassandra & Laband, David N, 2002. "Expressiveness and Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 110(3-4), pages 351-363, March.
    4. Feddersen, Timothy & Gailmard, Sean & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2009. "Moral Bias in Large Elections: Theory and Experimental Evidence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(2), pages 175-192, May.
    5. Roland Benabou & Efe A. Ok, 2001. "Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The Poum Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 447-487.
    6. Ruben Durante & Louis Putterman & Joël Weele, 2014. "Preferences For Redistribution And Perception Of Fairness: An Experimental Study," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1059-1086, August.
    7. Timothy C. Haab & Ju-Chin Huang & John C. Whitehead, 1999. "Are Hypothetical Referenda Incentive Compatible? A Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 186-196, February.
    8. Louis Putterman, 1997. "Why Have the Rabble not Redistributed the Wealth? On the Stability of Democracy and Unequal Property," International Economic Association Series, in: John E. Roemer (ed.), Property Relations, Incentives and Welfare, chapter 13, pages 359-393, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Cummings, Ronald G & Elliott, Steven & Harrison, Glenn W & Murphy, James, 1997. "Are Hypothetical Referenda Incentive Compatible?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(3), pages 609-621, June.
    10. David N. Laband & Ram Pandit & Anne M. Laband & John P. Sophocleus, 2008. "Pigskins and Politics," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(5), pages 553-560, October.
    11. Levine, David K. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2007. "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 143-158, February.
    12. Daniel Houser & Thomas Stratmann, 2008. "Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 215-239, July.
    13. John Duffy & Margit Tavits, 2008. "Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 603-618, July.
    14. John E. Roemer (ed.), 1997. "Property Relations, Incentives and Welfare," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-25287-9.
    15. John Duffy & Margit Tavits, 2006. "Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model," Working Paper 273, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised May 2007.
    16. Krupnikov, Yanna & Levine, Adam Seth & Lupia, Arthur & Prior, Markus, 2006. "Public Ignorance and Estate Tax Repeal: The Effect of Partisan Differences and Survey Incentives," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(3), pages 425-437, September.
    17. Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2004. "Voting when money and morals conflict: an experimental test of expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1645-1664, July.
    18. repec:pri:cepsud:196farber is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Russell S. Sobel & Gary A. Wagner, 2004. "Expressive Voting and Government Redistribution: Testing Tullock's `Charity of the Uncharitable'," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 143-159, April.
    20. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1200, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    21. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1200, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    22. Roemer, John E., 1998. "Why the poor do not expropriate the rich: an old argument in new garb," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 399-424, December.
    23. Houser, Daniel & Morton, Rebecca & Stratmann, Thomas, 2011. "Turned on or turned out? Campaign advertising, information and voting," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 708-727.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatskih21 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1185, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    26. Carter, John R & Guerette, Stephen D, 1992. "An Experimental Study of Expressive Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 251-260, April.
    27. Fong, Christina, 2001. "Social preferences, self-interest, and the demand for redistribution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 225-246, November.
    28. Dittmann, Ingolf & Kübler, Dorothea & Maug, Ernst & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2007. "Why votes have a value," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2007-068, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    29. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Rational Choice and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Union Representation Elections," Working Papers 1185, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    30. Aaron Edlin & Andrew Gelman & Noah Kaplan, 2007. "Voting as a Rational Choice: Why and How People Vote to Improve the Well-Being of Others," NBER Working Papers 13562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatskih21 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Aaron Edlin & Andrew Gelman & Noah Kaplan, 2007. "Voting as a Rational Choice," Rationality and Society, , vol. 19(3), pages 293-314, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    2. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto & Lekfuangfu, Warn N., 2022. "Counting on my vote not counting: Expressive voting in committees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    3. Efrat Dressler & Yevgeny Mugerman, 2023. "Doing the Right Thing? The Voting Power Effect and Institutional Shareholder Voting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(4), pages 1089-1112, April.
    4. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    5. Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2019. "Is civic duty the solution to the paradox of voting?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 257-283, September.
    6. Yoshio Kamijo & Yoichi Hizen & Tatsuyoshi Saijo & Teruyuki Tamura, 2019. "Voting on Behalf of a Future Generation: A Laboratory Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-21, August.
    7. Deegen, Peter, 2019. "The political economy of biodiversity in representative democracy: Between the expressive and the instrumental domain," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Jeremy Clark & Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2020. "Electoral Turnout and Social Capital," Working Papers in Economics 20/13, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    9. Arenas, Andreu, 2016. "Sticky votes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 12-25.
      • Andreu ARENAS, 2016. "Sticky Votes," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2763, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. Leonardo Bursztyn & Robert Jensen, 2017. "Social Image and Economic Behavior in the Field: Identifying, Understanding, and Shaping Social Pressure," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 131-153, September.
    11. Ning Cai & Wen He & Guoqiang Wu & Xin Yu, 2024. "Online voting and minority shareholder dissent: Evidence from China," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 327-352, June.
    12. Jan Schnellenbach, 2019. "Evolving hierarchical preferences and behavioral economic policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 31-52, January.
    13. Leonardo Bursztyn & Michael Callen & Bruno Ferman & Saad Gulzar & Ali Hasanain & Noam Yuchtman, 2014. "Identifying Ideology: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 20153, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jean-Robert Tyran & Alexander K. Wagner, 2016. "Experimental Evidence on Expressive Voting," Discussion Papers 16-12, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Becker, Johannes & Hopp, Daniel & Kriebel, Michael, 2020. "Mental accounting of public funds – The flypaper effect in the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 321-336.
    16. Acharya, Avidit & Meirowitz, Adam, 2017. "Sincere voting in large elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 121-131.
    17. Brad Taylor, 2015. "Strategic and expressive voting," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 159-170, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barton, Jared & Rodet, Cortney, 2015. "Are political statements only expressive? An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 174-186.
    2. Brad Taylor, 2015. "Strategic and expressive voting," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 159-170, June.
    3. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.
    4. Aimone, Jason A. & Butera, Luigi & Stratmann, Thomas, 2018. "Altruistic punishment in elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 149-160.
    5. Dittmann, Ingolf & Kübler, Dorothea & Maug, Ernst & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2014. "Why votes have value: Instrumental voting with overconfidence and overestimation of others' errors," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 17-38.
    6. Morton, Rebecca B. & Ou, Kai, 2015. "What motivates bandwagon voting behavior: Altruism or a desire to win?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 224-241.
    7. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    8. Hillman, Arye L., 2010. "Expressive behavior in economics and politics," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 403-418, December.
    9. Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2009. "Voting Motives, Group Identity, and Social Norms," Working Papers in Economics 366, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    10. Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 230-242.
    11. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    12. Shayo, Moses & Harel, Alon, 2012. "Non-consequentialist voting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 299-313.
    13. Höchtl, Wolfgang & Sausgruber, Rupert & Tyran, Jean-Robert, 2012. "Inequality aversion and voting on redistribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1406-1421.
    14. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson‐Stenman, 2010. "Why Do You Vote and Vote as You Do?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 495-516, November.
    15. Damien Bol & André Blais & Jean-François Laslier, 2018. "A mixed-utility theory of vote choice regret," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 461-478, September.
    16. Ivo Bischoff & Carolin Neuhaus & Peter Trautner & Bernd Weber, 2012. "The Neuroeconomics of Voting: Neural Evidence of Different Sources of Utility in Voting," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201234, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    17. Ginzburg, Boris & Guerra, José-Alberto & Lekfuangfu, Warn N., 2022. "Counting on my vote not counting: Expressive voting in committees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    18. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2014. "Behavioral public choice: A survey," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 14/03, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    19. Harald Lang & Florian Morath, 2015. "A Glance into the Tunnel: Experimental Evidence on Income Comparisons under Uncertainty," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2015-13, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    20. Fishman, Arthur & Klunover, Doron, 2024. "Costly expressive voting," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 99-104.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:159:y:2014:i:1:p:159-176. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.